Doc Cramer

[dgarza]

A dismal SB record : 62/136 = 45.6%

Doc Cramer vs .Batters from 1929 to 1948, (requiring At least 1000 games) :

AVG - .296 - 51st out of 127
OBP - .340 - 99th out of 127
SLG - .375 - 105th out of 127
OPS - .715 - 105th out of 127
OPS+ - 87 - 109th out of 127
WAR Runs Batting - -155 - 120th out of 127

[Jackaroo Dave]

Least career WAR, PA >7000

Rk              Player WAR/pos OPS+ Rfield    G    PA From   To
1      Alfredo Griffin    -0.1   67    -28 1962  7331 1976 1993
2            Joe Quinn     1.4   76     -5 1769  7352 1884 1901
3           Doc Cramer     4.2   87    -36 2238  9927 1929 1948
4         Dave Philley     4.8   92    -12 1904  7004 1941 1962
5          Kid Gleason     6.1   78    -23 1968  8210 1888 1912
6        Don Kessinger     6.8   73    -41 2078  8530 1964 
. . . . 
24         Jeff Conine    16.0  107     -3 2024  7782 1990 2007

In fairness to Doc, he probably deserves much more defensive WAR than BB REF gives him. As far as I can tell, all they use to evaluate him are traditional stats, no zone rating, no pitcher handedness, no fly-ground ratio, no bip ratio, basically just range factor, assists, and fielding percentage.

Cramer scores just below average in range and fielding, and he is Docced one run per season for his position, so he winds up with -36 defensive runs. Ashburn, on the other hand, is plus 76.

We don't know, of course, but given Doc's reputation, it's not out of the question that he was as good a fielder as Ashburn, and his career was a good bit longer, so a swing of 110-120 defensive runs is certainly possible. At any rate, it's no more unreasonable than chalking him up at -36 without really anything to go on.

So I'd guess wildly his WAR could be anywhere from 4+ to 16.

[Freakshow]

Least career WAR, PA >7000

Rk              Player WAR/pos OPS+ Rfield    G    PA From   To
1      Alfredo Griffin    -0.1   67    -28 1962  7331 1976 1993
2            Joe Quinn     1.4   76     -5 1769  7352 1884 1901
3           Doc Cramer     4.2   87    -36 2238  9927 1929 1948
4         Dave Philley     4.8   92    -12 1904  7004 1941 1962
5          Kid Gleason     6.1   78    -23 1968  8210 1888 1912
6        Don Kessinger     6.8   73    -41 2078  8530 1964 1979
7        Shano Collins     7.2   90     25 1800  7042 1910 1925
8          Eric Karros     7.8  107     -6 1755  7100 1991 2004
9        Charlie Grimm    10.6   94     18 2166  8747 1916 1936
10   Aurelio Rodriguez    11.7   76     90 2017  7085 1967 1983
11        Bill Buckner    11.8  100     14 2517 10037 1969 1990
12            Gus Bell    12.2  103    -65 1741  7069 1950 1964
13       Larry Parrish    12.8  107    -79 1891  7451 1974 1988
14        Ruben Sierra    13.0  105    -67 2186  8782 1986 2006
15           Tom Brown    13.3  100      0 1788  8206 1882 1898
16         Brad Ausmus    13.6   75     79 1971  7102 1993 2010
17           Adam Dunn    13.8  126   -151 1721  7210 2001 2012
18        Dave Kingman    14.8  115    -58 1941  7429 1971 1986
19       Patsy Donovan    15.0   97      9 1824  8172 1890 1907
20          Gee Walker    15.1   99     12 1784  7207 1931 1945
21         Juan Pierre    15.4   85    -18 1881  7950 2000 2012
22          Joe Carter    15.6  105    -86 2189  9154 1983 1998
23          Todd Zeile    15.9  104    -72 2158  8649 1989 2004
24         Jeff Conine    16.0  107     -3 2024  7782 1990 2007

[PVNICK]

Cramer was a league below average offensive player for his time despite the near .300 batting average.

Cramer
BA lg OBP lg Spct lg
.296 .283 .340 .357 .375 .409

Rice - played partly in the deadball era and was miles ahead
.322 .286 .374 .354 .427 .400

Butler - is also miles ahead of him
298 .261 .392 .327 .368 .397

In effect you are comparing mile times from Cramer (running downhill) Rice (running on a partially uphill drag) and Butler (mainly flat track) without taking the course into account. Sorry for the obtuse analogy but it's early.

[TomBodet]

He is kinda Sam Rice-ish, who to me is an easy Hof. Don't see anything 'wrong' with Doc, he deserves a better look from current folks.

[leecemark]

--Cramer was Butler without the walks. Of course the walks were Butler's main offense contribution. Cramer was a leadoff man who wasn't very good at getting on base. And he lacked the power to hit down in the order - except for way down. An empty .296 in the 1930s just isn't that impressive. He needed to be a tremendous defender to add any real value to a team.

[chicagowhitesox1173]

He's gotta have the lowest war for as many years he played. Least I would think he would be. I agree I would say he's pretty underrated.

[TomBodet]

He was a solid hitter and of, was he fast? Flit gets dinged for not walkin' 'nuff by the usual suspects, I think he is underrated myself though. Brett Butler wasn't that different, I liked him well enough.

[Jackaroo Dave]

What's really startling is his waawl. (I can't believe I wrote that sentence.) That's the winning percentage of a .500 team with Cramer replacing the centerfielder. It's .490, and a 10 point swing over a career is huge.

Well, he played in 2239 games, so a .500 team would win 1120 and a .490 team 1097, so that's a swing of 23 games, but his OBA was .340 in a .357 league, and his slugging .375 in a .409 league.

Over the course of a full season, he would routinely rack up 450 outs, with a high of 480. That's about 17 games worth of outs, all by himself. That's an awful lot for a .296 hitter.

One way to get a fix on his value is to compare his advanced batting stats with those of Richie Ashburn, a very similar player, but with a much higher WAR in a shorter career.

It would also be interesting to compare their fielding stats, because Cramer was reputedly an excellent fielder, and WAR defensive calculations may be chopping him down. If his advanced fielding stats are much worse than Ashburn's, he may be getting short shrift.

[chicagowhitesox1173]

Why does he have such a low career war. He played 20 years with around 2700 hits, 296 batting average and around a 340 on base percentage which is pretty good yet his career war is 4.2. I know he was a leadoff hitter in a offensive era but still a 4.2 war seems very low.

I'm not saying he's a hofer but I think he could have been considered one at one time. With saber stats I doubt he ever has a chance. What was the knock on him. I don't understand it at all, he played a pretty demanding position as a center fielder too.

I would have to think back in the 30's and 40's he would have been considered a top notch player.